Stephen Ferry for The New York Times
A view from a boat carrying passengers to a floating restaurant called Al Frio y Al Fuego.
Before we begin, a disclaimer: In Iquitos, Peru, your correspondent did not consume the shamanic hallucinogen ayahuasca. This is despite having seen candy-colored motorcycle-pulled carriages, Volkswagen-size sinkholes, the lost jungle Eiffel Tower, the gentleman pushing a life-size red-and-gold merry-go-round horse up a lime neon-lit edge of an avenue and the woman stopping traffic at midnight with a pompom routine, and heard the tinny soundtrack of cuckoo-clock church bells straight out of the Twilight Zone marking every quarter-hour.
The surreal is simply real in Iquitos, the proud "Capital of the Amazon."
I stumbled into town after seven days floating up the Amazon and its tributaries, hiking the jungle, meeting tarantulas and anacondas, watching pink dolphins frolic in the brown swill of the great river, and guzzling cocktails of the supposedly aphrodisiac herbal jungle brandy called 21 Raices. Iquitos seemed more urbane at that moment than it might have fresh off a plane from New York.
At the swampy confluence of the Amazon, Nanay and Itaya Rivers, Iquitos is the port city located farthest inland in the world, some 2,000 miles upriver from the Atlantic Ocean. Surrounded by water, accessible only by air or boat, the conveyance of choice is the motorcycle, attached like a pony to a covered carriage for two. The relentless green of the jungle cracks open about five miles from the town center to reveal a dusty, churning maze of concrete and dirt roads, and cinder block and concrete buildings painted shades of faded red, lime, teal and brown. Here one finds all the trappings of civilization from the graceful, Moorish architecture of Spain with arched porticoes on low-rise cement buildings to 18th-century churches, modern casinos, cracked concrete streets and barges heavy with lumber and other jungle resources, including oil and gold, extracted for the outside world.
In Lima, before I left for the Amazon and its jungle, I lunched with a Peruvian political leader who warned me that Iquitos is "kind of a hellhole," but I found it rather charming. It is the perfect destination, in fact, for those who like their steamy romantic hideaways with a little mayhem.
I was captivated within minutes of arriving, when I walked out onto the Malecón, the elegantly dilapidated boardwalk with a grand panorama of swampy Amazon in semi-flood stage. In the sort of humid noonday heat that favors only the supine, I was jerked to attention by shouts and a flurry of bodies hurling themselves through the dangling piranha jaws and basketry above the doorway of a nearby souvenir stall. A woman with one flip-flop in her hand and the other on a foot was chasing a handsome swain down the street, followed by a gaggle of other women, some with infants at breast. Errant lover or thief, I wondered lazily.
Something about the scene suggested the former.
If you like your Florida Keys circa 1930, with Hemingway and the gunrunners, or if you are simply on the run from a bad divorce, the I.R.S. or felony charges, Iquitos is the place for you. You will find kindred spirits here, plus you can pick up some jungle Viagra (helpfully labeled Levanta Lázaro) and a toucan or pet squirrel monkey at the market for less than it costs to take a crosstown Manhattan taxi at rush hour. A seasoned traveler can dip in here for a few days and emerge with an unforgettable memory of civilization's jungle edge. Iquitos is also becoming the destination of choice for tourists seeking jungle hallucinogens.
I started my three-day visit in town with a lunch of ceviche and a pisco sour (the Peruvian national cocktail, a grappa-like liquor with sour mix) at the upscale floating restaurant called Al Frio y Al Fuego, which can be reached only by skiff. From a seat by the swimming pool on this barge, one can appreciate Iquitos's quirky, jagged skyline, particularly a giant blue structure that dwarfs the ships in port. That would be a never-completed, unoccupied structure about 10 stories high that, depending on who tells it, is either an unfinished hotel built by drug lords or a building meant to house government workers' offices.
A cellphone tower perched on top of it completes the spectacle. Jungle vines sprout from the bones of windows that would have been.
Nina Burleigh writes The Bombshell column at The New York Observer. Her latest book is "The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italian Trials of Amanda Knox."
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